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It is too bad that they didn't have the budget to film any of the scenes from Curse of Fenric at night. Scenes with vampires shot in broad daylight just don't have the right level of menace. Despite that, this is one of the best stories of the McCoy era, and one of my favorites. It also has my favorite soundtrack from the classic era.

It is really sad that we never got to see the next series..who knows how dark that would have been.I feel the series was going in the right direction after the early McCoy episodes which at times was naff!

If I remember correctly, the Big Finish audio play Night Thoughts was being considered for the television series before it was cancelled. That may give you an idea of a direction the series could have gone in.

Thanks for bringing this topic up. I must admit that McCoy is not one of my favorite doctors--it's not so much how he played the Doctor but that the scripts during that time were pretty bad (in my opinion). However, with that said, I went onto Netflix last night and saw that the "Curse of Fenric" had the "Watch Now" button next to it. I fired it up, pumped the video out to my tv at full screen and watched away. I have to admit that I did enjoy the episode and liked the more serious tone.

I did have a few questions: I missed the undercurrent as to "who" the bad guy was--he seemed to know the Doctor from before in having lost a chess match. Now I've seen a lot of Doctor Who in my time and this wasn't ringing a bell.

I also thought it was a bit weird to have that pop psychology moment in which Ace jumps into the water, swims around a bit, comes out all wet, and now she's all better in feeling bad about her mom. Weird moment--not sure why that scene was needed.

Best McCoy story? I didn't realize you could use all three of those words in a sentence.

There really is no single televised story of McCoy's that I wholly like. However there are a few that aren't utter rubbish (at least if you can excise the musical scores). "Time and the Rani" and "Paradise Towars" are utter tripe. Don't have to give any rationale for that; it's just bloody obvious.

"Delta and the Bannerman" gave us Ray, who I think should've actually been the companion. Far better actress, far more interesting character. And she was Welsh! How cool would it have been if a Welsh companion prefigured the RTD era? The story itself is garbage, but she's cool.

"Dragonfire" has a, um, cool concept that you can pretty much understand all the way through. That's saying a lot for the McCoy era. But then that's also the story that gave us Ace and the literal cliffhanger so . . .

Not much in "The Happiness Patrol" and "Remembrance of the Daleks" which doesn't completely disgrace the series. "Remembrance", in particular, makes my skin crawl. It implies the First Doctor was an entire fool, makes a cliffhanger out of Daleks, pardon-me-as-I-yawn flying, has Ace hitting Daleks with a baseball bat, and has McCoy playing arch-butch.

"Silver Nemesis" at least had sufficient mystery to keep me watching—until the disasterous third episode.

"The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" was a clunker, too, but there were one or two good Doctorly moments there, at least. Unfortunately, there's also rapping that makes you long for Keff McCullogh's score.

"Ghost Light" was a miserable failure. I bet there's no single story that's required so much post-broadcast discussion to make sense of it. "Love and Monsters" is an entire masterpiece in comparison.

"The Curse of Fenric", as broadcast, had more plotholes than plot. In its movie version on the DVD, it's better, but the conclusion makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. That said, it does have some very nice underwater camera work for the age. (Mohan, look all you want, but you're not really gonna find answers to your questions. Maybe the bad guy would've returned in Season 27 or 28, but as things stand, the story collapses under the weight of its own self-importance in the end.)

And "Survival" just reeks. It's a nonsense. Why the HELL would the Master give up control of himself as he did? Cheapens the whole character concept to think he'd have found something of value in those cheetahs. Yeah, I"m buying the DVD, but as with all the McCoy era, only for the extra features. And for tips about how to ride a motorbike.

Which only really leaves us with "Battlefield" and the TVM—both of which give us something at least watchable. I would actually go so far as to say that McCoy is practically "on fire" in "Battlefield", And there's something immediately appealing about McCoy as a companionless Doctor in the TVM.

"I think of myself as ambitious in casting terms, and I know that Bonnie [Langford] has the potential to make the part totally unirritating . . ." — JNT, 1986